Application of rapid prototyping in industrial field - Essay Example

Some specific applications of rapid prototyping are discussed below. 1. Investment casting Investment casting is one of the widely used manufacturing processes in recent days though it had been in use for several years. In the investment casting process, a metallic part is created with the help of an investment model and it is used as hardware. As the first step of the process, the investment is coated with some layers of ceramic shell material and sand. After drying the pattern, it is burned with high temperature in order to make it stronger and acquire high resistance to thermal reactions.

This burning process creates several cavities in the pattern which is filled with molten metal and subsequently allowed to cool (Cooper & Cooper, 133)1. The model so produced allows the company to assess the performance of the designed model. Since the company gets the prototype casting within a few days on less expense, they are relieved from the huge expenses of traditional processes of production tooling or machining. In addition to investment casting, sand casting, vacuum casting, and injection molding there are some of the applications of rapid prototyping which fall under the category of indirect tooling. 2 2. Laser-Engineered Net Shaping It is also an application of rapid prototyping and includes in the category of direct tooling. . The MTS Corporation has commercialized the system.

Rapid tools, Direct AIM, LOMComposite, and Sand Molding are the other applications under direct tooling. 5 3. Aerospace and Military Rapid prototyping is used for the Airbus manufacturing in the Europe especially in UK. The Airbus manufacturing industry faces the challenge in designing adequate models of wind tunnel as it involves the pumping of ‘high pressure air to power turbine engines within a limited space envelope’ (Euromold)6. Laser sintering was discovered as the best solution to this problem and it helps the manufacturer to meet various financial needs of the project and meet the deadlines.

Rapid prototyping and thereby additive technologies help the wind tunnel industrialists to carry out their functions easily and efficiently. Rapid prototyping has other applications also in the service area of military. 4. Medical and Dental 7 As the branch of rapid prototyping developed fast, the medical industry has also obtained several advantages. It helps medical technicians to design physical models from medical images with help of additive fabrication technology. Nowadays, the surgeons across the world use physical anatomical models in order to develop frameworks for complex surgeries as it helps them to carry out the process more smoothly 8(ProtoCAM).

As the medical device manufactures realized the scope of rapid prototyping, they have begun to take patient-specific images so as to produce large collections of databases for the further designing processes. Researchers in the area of osteology have many applications with rapid prototyping as it helps them to produce bone models and fracture healing